7 Keys to Successful Email Marketing

Successful email marketing is an important and often overlooked part of digital marketing. According to an article on Inc: "But after a couple of decades of Nigerian prince schemes, Spanish lotto scams, and mountains of unsolicited spam (which is never a good marketing tactic), how do people feel about email now? Is it still a worthwhile tactic for small-business owners and marketers to pursue?"

The simple answer is yes!! As you work on your campaign, make sure you don't forget these things: Your goal. What is it that you want to accomplish with the email? Timing is of utmost importance in email marketing-how often, time of day, and the specific day (Remember: Consistency is Key!). If you want your message to be opened more quickly after it's sent, then timing is up there in terms of importance. Better timing for an email equates to higher chances of it getting noticed sooner! Great design can make your email a sight for sore eyes, especially mobile devices.

Want to build a successful email marketing campaign?

Well, today's your lucky day! Here is how you can have successful email marketing campaigns.

1. List Building

First things first, build yourself an honest list! The old days of spamming people without their consent are over! Some experts told me against using "cold messaging", but it worked well if I was very selective in purchasing a list of likely buyers. Buying lists back in the day was an art, and I got paid a lot of money to guide businesses on which list purchases were likely to result in high returns. Unfortunately, buying lists is not an option, so you have to trudge through and develop your own. To do this, you need to be compliant with CAN-SPAM regulations. These are available by following the link above. Well, what kind of list are you looking to create? Put your sign-up form everywhere: on the home page and throughout your website; in a physical store (if you have one); at events; and especially on social media. Request for signing up for your email list by offering something (like an ebook, coupon, etc.) in exchange

Only ask for the information you need! This way, it's fast and easy for visitors to sign up! You can always get more information by contacting them after they've signed up. Make your sign-up form obvious without interfering with the user's experience by popping up an unnecessary sign-up popup. Instead, put a small band at the bottom of your site that asks for an email address or something like that. Make sure your website is up to date for SEO. You want everything that will reduce visits, bouncing back to the search engine results page without staying on your site or spending time on it. Include social sharing buttons to make your email more shareable and improve forwarding capability. These are great ways to build your list!

2. Strong Content

 In marketing, the message is of utmost importance. Make your content (both text and images) attractive and inviting; use lots of white space, and a little humour never hurt anybody. The more an email looks like a personal conversation with a friend, the better it will perform.

Personalization doesn't end with including the person's name. Make the email look as if it was written specifically for the reader. Don't waste your readers' time with nonsense: say what you need and provide links to more information (Say what needs to be said!)

3. Timing

The last thing you want is to overwhelm your readers with way too many emails, but you do want to use email campaigns to build loyalty and engagement. There's a delicate grey area in between; that's where you want to be.

There are no one-size-fits to this question. Analyzing your data would be the best way to figure out how often you should be checking your analytics. Email is often the most common reason for open rates dropping, complaints, or unsubscribers. Give the reader some space! If you're not seeing people unsubscribing or complaining, you could probably send more frequent emails.

The trick is to send emails to your audience when you have something worth saying.

4. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is often met with an adverse knee-jerk reaction because it sounds like we're treating our subscribers as robots who all get treated the same. Contrary to what you might think, successful email marketing requires a lot of work. You need to send the right content at the right time, which means joining forces with marketing automation software.

While it's true that no marketing automation platform will be effective on its own, you can't just spend time updating information-like product interests and customer journey stages-- the automated content needs attention as well.

5. Analytics

Wonders of digital marketing provide many metrics that should guide every marketing decision you make. Here's what you should be on the lookout for;

1. Subscriber data such as new subscribers and unsubscribe requests.

2. Campaign performance–how many opens, how many clicks, and, if you've installed tracking codes, goal completions based on each campaign.

6. Mobile-friendliness

Making your content mobile-friendly is key to successful email marketing. 47% of emails are opened on a mobile device. Here's their advice for making your content more accessible to people using mobile devices:

1. Convert your email to a one-column template for an easy mobile fix.

2. Bump up the font size for improved readability on smartphones.

3. Make the size of your buttons 44 pixels by 44 pixels. This guideline is from iOS.

4. The call-to-action should be evident and easy to tap. 

5. Keep critical tappable elements in the middle of your screen to consider ergonomics. Many users tap and scroll with their thumb, so it is important that they can reach these elements easily.

7. Customer Focus

Rob Krekstein says you need to be sending emails that lead to business success, not just sending out emails. Your email should have the intended result of being a source of leads and sales pipeline, and new customer sales revenue for this to happen. Even in the current environment where it seems that we each receive 50 emails a day from companies selling their services, emails still have a role to play.

Here are a few tips for how to make this successful, as well as some metrics as proof points:

1. The email should be concise and straightforward. Too often, we try to make the email about the product for us by including a lot of value propositions and verbiage. These tactics may increase the value of a prospect, but they will ultimately damage your response rate. Open with a compelling or captivating statement, followed by 2-3 bullet points. Then, offer them the button at the bottom to take action.

2. The messaging must be compelling. Use a specific argument that is not generic, boring or industry-driven. Be direct and confident with your statement. Let the recipient know within seconds why they should read on and eventually click the action button on the bottom. It usually requires some prior analytics of your target audience. Remember, do your homework!

3. The CTA must be specific. The entire purpose is to get as many prospects as you can on the Action Button. Be sure and use verbiage that explains precisely WHAT they will receive once they click.

4. The landing page should be informative. This is where you can further explain your services and add assets that might be interesting to the prospect. This is your chance to provide them with an excellent "WOW Factor" by making sure they spend more time on the Landing Page.

5. You need to follow up within 24 hours. Most "experts" will say that the value degrades most significantly after 48 hours of response, but I feel that immediate contact is necessary to achieve optimal results. You need to create a process that allows for a response to all prospects that opened or clicked through the email within hours and technology that showcases their activity on your landing page so you can direct the follow-up call to their specific interest.

Note: These tactics generated 62-73% more responses, a 42% increase in leads and a 29% increase in sales after extensive testing.